1. The AV systems gives a player a score for each player season. To combine these into a career number, I take 100% of the player’s best season, plus 95% of his second-best season, plus 90% of his third-best season, and so on.

2. I’m only comfortable (for now) applying the AV methodology to post-merger seasons. Players who debuted before the merger, however, are included if their post-merger seasons alone merit inclusion. In this case, they have a ‘+’ after their AV score to remind you that their career AV is (probably) higher than the number shown.

3. To avoid 4-3/3-4 issues, I gave each defense 12 players, including two DT/NTs, two DEs, two OLBs, and two ILB/MLBs.

4. Because of the slippery and changing nature of defining what a fullback is, I simply decided to go with two RB/FBs, instead of an RB and an FB.

As with most things AV-related, this series of posts is mostly just for fun, but I’m also curious to hear feedback from long-time followers of the teams about things that look fishy.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 5:40 am and is filed under Approximate Value, General.
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mrh, as always, HoF questions come in two flavors: will he? and should he? AV is designed more to answer the should he? questions. It's tough to say exactly how much relevance it'd have on the will he? questions.
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One thing that is really, really strange about Thomas is that the Associated Press really seems to love him. He's made the AP's all-pro team (which is the one that AV uses) many times, but has never made, e.g., the Sporting News team. I'm not sure what's up with that.

Regarding Surtain, I also wondered how he didn't crack the top 2 CB spots but remembered how much QBs avoided his side of the field. That is what probably skewed the numbers in favor of Sam Madison, who couldn't hold a candle to Surtain IMHO.

What are the chances that we'll see AV on players pages? I would think it would be pretty interesting to see broken down by season for every player. Although I have no idea how much work that would be.

It's surprising how poor the Patriots running back history is. Kids who break down, veterans finishing up, & guys who never quite made it - you'd think the team stank. For his 3 seasons there, how far behind Collins is Curtis Martin?

I find it a bit strange that Thurman comes out ahead of O.J. for the Bills RBs, yet the OL is more members of the Electric Company than the 90s line. Hull's the only one from the bunch. On the other hand, I'm surprised at Devlin over Jones and either one of them over Howard Ballard. The D doesn't surprise much, perhaps Odomes until trying to remember who else played there. Henry Jones being as effective as he was came as a surprise until I thought about it too. Phil Hansen over Aaron Schobel is perhaps the biggest surprise.

Biggest surprise: Chris Slade over Mike Vrable at OLB?
How close were...:Ty Law to being one of the corners? Rodney Harrison to replacing Milloy?
It really shows: How the Pats have had just awful running backs, or gotten just a couple years out of the good ones.
Overall: I think a pretty accurate list.
Question: Do the players get any bonus for having won Super Bowls, made the playoffs, ect. As a fan I feel more attached to the players who were on the Super Bowl teams, and it certainly is an accomplishment that should give the player some added value when it comes to all-time lists.

Tom: Morris is sunk by his complete lack of receiving yards. Stanfill is 4 points behind Den Herder, and would doubtless have made it if his 1969 season was counted.
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DolFan316: Surtain is at 50, so he's not far behind. Johnson barely edges him out based on having been a starter for 9 years to Surtain's five. Regarding Evans, don't forget that his first five seasons are not included in the total. He'd be in the 80s (probably) or possibly even the 90s if you counted his pre-merger seasons.
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Downpuppy, the next Patriot RBs would be: Kevin Faulk (43), Andy Johnson (34), Curtis Martin (34).
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the K, the Bills line has a number of too-close-to-call situations. Fina and Wolford were 2 points behind Ken Jones. McKenzie and Ritcher were 2 and 6 points behind Ruben Brown. Schobel will probably pass Hansen with one more season.
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Andrew, Vrabel and Slade are actually tied. I was too lazy to add a tie-check to the program, and I guess the machine randomly chose Slade. Law is two points behind Haynes. Harrison is a good distance behind Milloy (22 points). For now, AV is completely based on regular season stats. I go back and forth on whether adding postseason bonuses would be a good idea or not.
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Vince and Autumn, I think it's safe to say that AV will definitely be added to the main (non-blog) part of the site at some point. I think its best use is on pages like this one for example, where you have a big list of players. A career AV column would make it easy to bring the most relevant guys to the top easily. The main hold-up at this point is that I want to get AV extended back to the 30s before I put it on the pages.